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I work in a very international office, there are many nationalities present. Taking just countries in the European area, I can think of people who are: Spanish, French, Dutch, Swiss, Italian, German, British, Danish, Finnish, Swedish, Polish, Russian, Israeli, Greek… I quite like the diversity! Greeting today, a Spanish guy said “I’ll hopefully see you [...]

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Europe typically seems quite open-minded and accepting of diverse cultures. There are so many reasons why this may be, from the second world war, to the philosophers they’ve had, to the worldly experience of being colonialists (and possibly learning the problems with it and suffering reverse colonisation). But I’m no historian, so I will refrain [...]

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There are various uses of the word “evolution”. Some talk about “Stellar Evolution” when referring to the development of stars. (Carl Sagan does this.) Others complain the word is too widely used, and is losing its meaning, suggesting we should only use it to refer to biological evolution. (I’m under the impression that Stephen Jay [...]

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A previous post on “What is God?”: What is God?: The Personal God. A long long time ago, but not in a far away galaxy, tribalism was the order of the day, and it was good. Some insist that tribalism is the natural state for humanity. Borrowing a paragraph from Wikipedia’s article on Tribalism: According [...]

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This post was originally written in and scheduled for November, but never got published. I have been talking about “Walking the Streets of Athens” in a number of places. This idea applies to anyone wanting to make a difference in other people’s lives. You need to walk their streets, understand their culture, understand their needs, [...]

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You likely know by now I’m supposedly a “bad communicator”, because I keep on using words in ways that you, the reader, are not used to. (Or as you might say, “incorrectly”. Whatever.) For example, especially when dealing with atheistic material, I love using Biblical language. This is likely to make you hopping mad. Cool! [...]

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Why must we always call a horse a horse? What is wrong with calling it a perd when talking to an Afrikaans person, a paard when talking to a Dutch person, a cheval when talking to a French person, and a knight when playing chess? I don’t like the idea of forcing everyone to speak [...]

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There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

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Ek hoor vandag vir Riaan Cruywagen praat van “twintig-vier”. Soos in, hierdie jaar is die jaar “twintig-sewe”. Uiteindelik verstaan ek hoekom Afrikaans/Nederlands daardie lomp agterstevoor manier het om van getalle te praat. Die arme Engelse kan nie praat van die jaartal nie. “Twenty-seven”, “twenty-four”. Haha, die Engelse is n00bs, hulle taal is nie “Y2K-compliant” nie! [...]

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Hi! My name is Hugo. I am completely fluent in the following languages: English, Afrikaans, Christianspeak, Atheist, and Whale. I can understand and read Dutch quite easily. Next year I hope to learn some French and some Muslim. (Eventually, some Judaism, Buddhism, Confucianism, German and Taoism will come in handy.) For the time being, I’m [...]

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